Old growth forests store carbon best – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Another bit of excellent research from the ANU (Australian National University) with Professor Brendan Mackey’s team looking at 132 forests around the world.  They found that Australia’s Victorian eucalyptus gum forests hold 1,900t CO2/hectare 4x more than tropical forests

Brendan Mackey ANU | ABC news http://bit.ly/13yA4v

Oregon gardens climb the walls

This style of vertical garden art was started by French scientist Patrick Blanc http://bit.ly/10ei7v

Urban gardens go up the wall – OregonLive.com.

RESOURCES

• The Chicago Botanic Garden sells a “Vertical Gardening” (Issue #4) fact sheet with directions for $3.

• Smith & Hawken sells mini vertical gardens in the form of polypropylene trays that stack up to nine high or mount on a wall. $59 for a set of three stackable trays; each tray has three planting pockets.

SEE PICTURES and purchase kits at eltlivingwalls.com and g-sky.com. Or check out Pat Lando’s newly installed vertical garden at the Hawthorne Hostel, 3031 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.

SUGGESTED PLANTS FOR SHADE: Japanese forest grass, impatiens, ivy, spider plants, bugleweed (Ajuga), begonia, ferns, miniature hostas, wild ginger, black mondo grass

SUGGESTED PLANTS FOR SUN: Sedum, geraniums (Pelargonium), strawberries, leaf lettuce, radicchio, calendula, nasturtium, thyme, pansies, parsley, spurge (Euphorbia)

Grist – responses to myths of the climate change denial industry

enviro journalism @ it's best

Despite 140+years of climate change science, tens of thousands of peer reviewed articles on every aspect of the natural world tree rings, corals, beetle, ice coverage, thickness & melting rates, atmospheric gas greenhouse forcings, etc covering the past, current & future, the denial industry in the blogsphere and rural & regional Australia is alive & kicking.

I’ve found climate change deniers on the whole to have low scientific literacy or levels of understanding & trust of the scientific approach to the world; often have a religious orientation as professional skeptic or fundamentalist christian,

covering your ears to the screams of the Earth takes effort

and are looking for a world that does not change outside the way they have defined it. ….. and mostly do not want to listen or view anything that shoots their delusions down.

If you get someone reasonable who’s on the ideological tipping point, here are some good answers to the “denial industry” crap.
http://bit.ly/nLmO4

ChangeThis :: The Design Funnel: A Manifesto for Meaningful Design

This looks like useful for designers and systems thinking creatives.  It’s another way of thinking about the design process, and although couched in web design terms has the potential for all other design applications as well, where the  designer needs thinking tools for getting close to what the  clients need.

ChangeThis :: The Design Funnel: A Manifesto for Meaningful Design.

Global Humanitarian Forum – Climate Change responsible for 300,000 deaths a year

The human face of the existing impact of Climate Change is now being quantified. Climate Change is a human crisis where the poor of the world are already suffering significant illness, loss of life and livelihood.

Report projects that by 2030, worldwide deaths will reach almost 500,000 per year; people affected by climate change annually expected to rise to over 600 million and the total annual economic cost increase to around $300 billion.

Global Humanitarian Forum – Climate Change responsible for 300,000 deaths a year.

California’s Water Woes Threaten the Entire Country’s Food Supply | Water | AlterNet

US Secretary of Energy, Dr Stephen Chu  is telling it like it is. Described as a “Cassandra on a mission of truth” and  “a dystopian breath of fresh air” in this posting from  AlterNet. | Water| the issues of California’s retreating water supply get a good airing.  Scott Thill states

“Simply put, global warming, human-induced and otherwise, has significantly broadened the range of the tropical belt by a rate of 70 kilometers per decade. Southern California, like the Sahara Desert and Sahel savanna, is already subtropical in the summer. But with climate crisis expanding its reach, that subtropical heat could claim not just Northern California’s snowpack, but even part of Washington’s and Utah’s bounties.”

Nearly a third of the country’s food supply comes from California, but drought there may be a catastrophe for farmers ….. See full article  http://bit.ly/3nDGyE

Web 2.0 – “Here comes everybody” Clay Shirky

As any intelligent and eco-literate person will be aware. we are, to use an Australianism, “up sh*t creek in a barb wire canoe with a gum leaf paddle”.  The enormity of the personal and social challenges we are facing in order to even acknowledge the environmental issues, let alone dealing with them adequately are enormous.

This talk by Clay Shirky at the Web 2.0 SF 2008 is an insight into the social participation opportunities that arise our collective participation in Web 2.0 and gives us all

International water ‘barons’ are starting to emerge, good or bad?

This was a discussion at the Australian Sustainability Group on LinkedIn staarted by Erin O’Donnell, of DSE Victoria, who asked:

International water ‘barons’ are starting to emerge – is this a good or bad thing for water resource management? Liquidity for farmers versus market dominance by non-water-users? The Weekly Times -Water Barons

My answer:

I think it is a really bad idea for communities. While in the short term, it may solve a few farmers financial woes and get them a retirement bonus, on the longer term I see nothing but difficulties.

The economics I like and have observed as effective and people sized is that of EF Schumacher, “Small is Beautiful: economics as if people mattered”

Corporatism (the big version of what used to be called Capitalism) is after a milk cow of guaranteed income, it wants modern day serfs and peasants dependent on their GM Seed or communities buying their toxic bottled water. The amoral ideology

We need to repair enviromental damage while we still can

A good example of significant environmental damage from overstretching natural resources is the decline of the Aral Sea.

Thanks to George who sent me this link to UNEP and Google Earth views of the decline and partial recovery of the Aral Sea in Central Asia, once the fourth largest inland sea.

A history of really bad management with water diverted for agriculture combined with accelerating climate change impacts, means a very high probability that the Aral Sea has already passed critical survival tipping points to be ever restored to a single Inland Sea. It is now also highly likely that the now separate Southern Aral Sea will disappear entirely in coming decades.

To me this youtube clip and the sad story of the Aral Sea is a wake up call to action on restoring the extensive environmental damage we have done to this planet while we still have a choice.

Working on the projects for the Green Economy

Here’s a good description from the Green Economy Institute http://ping.fm/dN1TX